Read Around South America Challenge

Read at least one book by an author from each country in South America.

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Best books from South America (522)

402.

The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: South America / Peru flag Peru
Description:
Haunted all her life by feelings of terror and emptiness, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic - and finds herself reliving the events of l961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million. Rafael Trujillo, the depraved ailing dictator whom Dominicans call the Goat, controls his inner circle with a combination of violence and blackmail. In Trujillo's gaudy palace, treachery and cowardice have become a way of life. But Trujillo's grasp is slipping. There is a conspiracy against him, and a Machiavellian... continue
Genre

403.

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende EN

Rating: 4 (32 votes)
Country: South America / Peru flag Peru
Description:
Spanning four generations, Isabel Allende's magnificent family saga is populated by a memorable, often eccentric cast of characters. Together, men and women, spirits, the forces of nature, and of history, converge in an unforgettable, wholly absorbing and brilliantly realised novel that is as richly entertaining as it is a masterpiece of modern literature.

404.

On Job by Gustavo Gutiérrez EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: South America / Peru flag Peru
Description:
One of this century's most eminent theologians addresses the eternal questions of the relationship of good and evil, linking the story of Job to the lives of the poor and oppressed of our world.

405.

The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: South America / Peru flag Peru
Description:
The Time of the Hero has been acclaimed by critics around the world as one of the outstanding Spanish novels of recent decades. In the author's native Peru, this powerful social satire so outraged the authorities that a thousand copies were publicly burned. The novel is set in Leoncio Prado Military Academy in Lima, where a group of cadets attempt to break out of the vicious round of sadistic ragging, military discipline, confinement and boredom. But their pranks set off a cycle of betrayal, murder and revenge which jeopardizes the entire military hierarchy. 'A work of undeniable power and ski... continue

406.

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: South America / Peru flag Peru
Description:
'A comic novel on the grand scale written with tremendous confidence and verve. Mario, 18-year-old law student and radio news-editor, falls scandalously for his Aunt Julia, the 32-year-old divorced wife of a cousin, and the progressively lunatic story of this affair is interwoven with episodes from a series of radio soap-operas written by his friend Pedro Comacho. Vargas Llosa's huge energy and inventiveness is extravagant and fabulously funny.' New Statesman
Genre

407.

Ines of My Soul : A Novel by Isabel Allende EN

Rating: 4 (3 votes)
Country: South America / Peru flag Peru
Description:
A passionate tale of love, freedom, and conquest from the New York Times bestselling author of The House of the Spirits, Isabelle Allende. Born into a poor family in Spain, Inés Suárez, finds herself condemned to a life of poverty without opportunity as a lowly seamstress. But it's the sixteenth century, the beginning of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Struck by the same restless hope and opportunism, Inés uses her shiftless husband's disappearance to Peru as an excuse to embark on her own adventure. After learning of her husband's death in battle, she meets the fiery war hero, Pedro de ... continue

408.

Eva Luna by Isabel Allende EN

Rating: 4 (5 votes)
Country: South America / Peru flag Peru
Description:
An exotic dance that beguiles and entices... The enchanted and enchanting account of a contemporary Scheherazade, a wide-eyed American teller-of-tales who triumphs over harsh reality through the creative power of her own imagination... "From the Paperback edition.
Genre

409.

Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: South America / Peru flag Peru
Description:
Set in an isolated, rundown community in the Peruvian Andes, Vargas Llosa's novel tells the story of a series of mysterious disappearances involving the Shining Path guerrillas and a local couple performing cannibalistic sacrifices with strange similiarities to the Dionysian rituals of ancient Greece. Part detective novel and part political allegory, it offers a panoramic view of Peruvian society; not only of the current political violence and social upheaval, but also of the country's past and its connection to Indian culture and pre-Hispanic mysticism.

410.

The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa EN

Rating: 1 (2 votes)
Country: South America / Peru flag Peru
Description:
Ricardo Somocurcio is in love with a bad girl. He loves her as a teenager known as 'Lily' in Lima in 1950, where she claims to be from Chile but vanishes the moment her claim is exposed as fiction. He loves her next in Paris as 'Comrade Arlette', an activist en route to Cuba, an icy, remote lover who denies knowing anything about the Lily of years gone by. Whoever the bad girl turns up as and however poorly she treats him, Ricardo is doomed to worship her. Gifted liar and irresistible, maddening muse - does Ricardo ever know who she really is?
Genre


BEST BOOKS FROM SOUTH AMERICA BY COUNTRY

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